Conrart Weller yawned as he climbed slowly up out of the arms of sleep. He usually wasn't a heavy sleeper, but the past week had been pure hell. He had to rescue King Yuri from – no less than – ten life-threatening situations; honestly he didn't know how the boy got into all these messes. Günter was currently obsessing about some April earth holiday that 'sounded like fun'. Yozak was also up to something, but he didn't know what – which, in and of itself, was entirely unusual, and didn't bode well. On top of it all, Stoffel was at the palace, which meant he had to keep an eye on his conniving, if utterly unintelligent, uncle. At least there, he and Raven were in the same leaky boat without a bucket.

To make matters worse, Adelbert, Keenan and his three human lackeys – whose names currently escaped him – had been seen lurking around the national border. Just one more thing he had to keep an eye on.

Then, as if he didn't have enough to do, his mother, the Lady Cecilia, former queen of Shin Makoku, was getting married for the third time next month – and she just HAD to invite the entire bloody Demon Kingdom, Caloria, Cavalcade, and half of Francia to attend the festivities. Her one true demand was that every single invitation had to be handwritten – for that special touch – by somebody other than a scribe. She also insisted that all of the invitations be written by the same person so that they were uniform.

Since he had the best handwriting out of all three of her children, the duty of writing every single, extremely florid, three and a half page wedding invitation had landed squarely in his lap. He currently had more paperwork to sludge through than Gwendal saw in an entire year! It all sat in neat and tidy stacks on and around his massive desk. Each stack towered so high that he could only just see over them standing up.

He had his own private mountain range of paperwork dominating his office!

In some ways, it was odd; normally, he was the one rescuing Yuri from Günter's over exuberant teaching style and the veritable mountain of paperwork the young king had to read and sign. For the last week however, he found himself praying to the stars above that something would happen that required his immediate attention elsewhere, or that Yuri would show up and ask him to play a game or two of catch.

Yuri had unwittingly rescued him on two separate, non life-threatening occasions: once by deciding that the day was just too beautiful to be wasted inside, and once by deciding that he was going for a ride through the hillside surrounding the capital city.

To Conrart's great embarrassment, he'd been too tired to recognize the signs when the horse he was riding (his little mare had thrown a shoe) suddenly decided it wanted nothing to do with him. So now, he was bruised and embarrassed, as well as exhausted.

Yuri had been generous enough not to laugh at him when he'd been scrapped out of his saddle and had taken an unexpected tumble down the hill into the lake; even though he was sure he looked utterly ridiculous sitting there in the shallow water with a lily pad on his head.

It had taken him the better part of an hour to catch the damned beast, who'd decided that running in circles around him was a pleasant way to spend the morning.

Then because the Great One Just seemed to have it in for him this week, they'd returned to the castle only to be accosted by Günter. As the exuberant man dragged the young king off to his studies, he'd handed the annoying gray brute of a horse over to the stable hands and limped back to his office – intent on making a dent in the enormous pile of invitations.

He'd become so involved in his work that he missed dinner. When he finally noticed, it was already dark out.

Actually, he only surfaced from his work when Günter barged into his office, looking for their academically unmotivated boy king, screeching "Heika" at the top of his ample lungs.

Upon not finding the boy, Günter exited his office just as ostentatiously as he'd entered it, slamming the door behind him in disgust.

Conrart had had just enough time to swear colorfully before literally being buried alive in the mountain of paper falling off his desk.

He immerged an hour later with an invitation stuck to his for head and ink in his hair. Apparently, his inkwell had spilt. He spent the next four hours cleaning up his office, separating the bent (and thus useless) invitations and the ones that were covered in or dotted with spilled green ink, from those still in pristine condition, or at least salvageable.

All in all, he'd had to rewrite about 300 of the damned things so that they could all be sent out in the morning. Or rather, since it was well past midnight by the time he finished, in a few hours.

And, he still hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

Utterly exhausted, he stumbled down to the kitchens and liberated a small piece of fruit – he thought it may have been a peach but couldn't be sure – before stumbling back to his rooms munching on his prize.

Honestly, it was a miracle he didn't choke.

The last thing he remembered was stripping to the skin and falling into bed.

It wasn't really surprising that it took him a moment to wake up enough to realize his predicament.

His arms were stretched out over his head and handcuffed to the headboard, the metal link chain looped through an ornamental gap in the hand carved, well sanded, and polished wood. They were crossed at the wrists and the tension in the chain robbed him of the ability to move his arms at all.

He swore colorfully and tugged, trying to wrap his fatigue-clouded mind around the thought of the fur lined manacles that bound him to his bed. Shifting slightly, he attempted to bring his feet up to give himself more leverage. Only to discover his feet had been chained to the bedposts, so that he resembled an upside down Y.

Somebody was going to die for this!

He struggled vainly, unable to get enough leverage to do really anything. The sound of paper crinkling caught his attention and he turned his head to the side noting two things, first a shiny little key that lay just beyond his reach and second a piece of paper propped up against one of the pillows.

A handwritten note read:

You really ought to know better than to let yourself be this unaware of your surroundings Captain.

P.S. Good luck getting free

There was no signature, but he didn't need one.

He knew Yozak's handwriting anywhere.

Oh, Yozak was so dead for this!

He struggled, vainly trying to reach the damned key.

Sometime later – about an hour judging by the changing light – he'd worked himself nearly to exhaustion. He was nearly frantic – he had way too much to do to spend even another hour chained to his bed and who knew how long it would be before Yozak came and set him free. At least he didn't have to worry about somebody seeing him chained naked to his bed.

He continued to struggle, trying to get free – more than a little alarmed when all he'd managed to do was tangle his legs up in his sheets, or more precisely, his knees. His efforts had left everything from the knee up bare to anyone who might drop in.

At the sound of a knock on his door, he froze.

"Conrad?"

His heart stopped at the sound of his young king's voice –

"Are you alright? You missed our morning jog."

Oh, this could not be happening. Why did it have to be Yuri?

"I- I'm fine, Heika, just -" he began then froze. How the hell was he supposed to handle this one? "Just a little tied up at the moment."

Oh, that's great Conrart, perfect just perfect. Idiot!

"Oh okay." Yuri called then added, "Um, do you want to play some catch later today?"

Conrart was about to answer when he heard Günter's voice raised in its customary shriek. Oh this so wasn't good.

He also heard his doorknob turn as Yuri bolted for cover.

"Conrad?!!!!! Oh My God!"

Conrart felt himself going beet-red with embarrassment at the sight of his startled godson and king. Oh Great One this COULD NOT be happening.

Yuri's startled shriek brought Günter and Wolfram at a run.

The resulting ruckus quickly brought Gwendal and their Lady Mother.

He wanted to die of shame.

"Conrart! Explain yourself now!"

Conrart didn't know if it was possible to get any redder but he defiantly made an effort. "Um, Hi Gwen… Could you maybe, oh I don't know, if it's not too much trouble, Help Me!!!!"

They all just stared at him in utter shock.

Yozak of course chose that exact moment to come strolling in.

The cooper-haired spy froze, startled by their unexpected guests. "Oh dear," he muttered.

Conrart just glared at him. "You have exactly five seconds to unchain me or you are a dead man when I get out of this Yozak!" he snarled in annoyance.

Yozak simply winked at him and made a cheeky comment about liking him better that way before he started unlocking the manacles. For a second, Conrart simply sat there utterly humiliated, rubbing some of the feeling back into his abused wrists. Then he was up, bolting after Yozak with an undignified shout of "I'm going to kill you!"

Yozak alarmed made a slightly strangled noise and darted into the living room; Conrart hot on his heels –completely unheeding of his nude state. He chased the red haired spy around his living room – not caring about the scene they were making. After a moment, he succeeded in tackling Yozak to the ground ranting the whole time about how Yozak was sooo dead for this!

Yozak cursed and flung his weight to the side deftly rolling the smaller man under him. For a few minutes they wrestled, fighting for dominance before Yozak finally managed to pin Conrart's smaller frame beneath him, easily straddling the latter's hips.

"Now Conrart calm down – it was a joke."

Conrart, chest heaving, glared at his friend. Then, twisting around like a ferret, he bucked off the ground and jabbed the hard curve of his hip into Yozak's groin.

Yozak yelped, and Conrart used his moment's distraction to reverse their positions. "You utterly humiliated me!" he growled.

Yozak snorted and twisted his hips to dislodge Conrart. The smaller man let out a strangled squeak as he made contact with the floor. Yozak straddled him again, this time sitting on the small of his back to prevent him from moving at all.

"Say it." The red head ordered mildly.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Yelled Conrart, cursing like the soldier he was.

"Not until you say it." Yozak retorted, lightly resting one hand at the base of Conrart's neck to hold him still.

Conrart struggled, "fuck you!"

"Hmmm… maybe later." Yozak replied. "Say it."

"No!"

"Say it, or I really will embarrass you."

"Go to hell!"

Yozak sighed, and reaching out he slid his hands down Conrart's sides until he found just the right spot.

"Stop it! Yozak, I'm serious! Stop it!" Conrart yelled between gales of laughter.

Yozak didn't let up for a second, "not until you say it!"

Conrart was laughing, giggling so hard his sides hurt, and thrashing around in a desperate attempt to avoid Yozak's nimble fingers. "Alright, Alright. Mercy, Mercy … Just stop tickling me!"

Yozak released him at once, rising so that his weight rested on his knees and not Conrart's back. Conrart, still giggling, rolled over onto his back and lay there trying vainly to regain control of himself.

"Much as I'm enjoying the view Captain, I think you should probably put a robe on." Yozak chided gently. "You'll catch cold on that stone floor."

Conrart flushed crimson. Shimming out from under Yozak, he dragged a throw blanket off the nearby sofa and wrapped it around his slim shoulders.

"I never can tell if those two are sleeping together or just alarmingly close." Wolfram told Gwendal in a voice that wasn't nearly as quiet as he'd hoped.

"We're sleeping together." Yozak informed him flippantly.

"YOZAK!!!" Conrart yelped, "Stop teasing him!"

Yozak pouted, "Spoil sport."